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I'm tired of people elevating these players from the 50s and 60s. In basketball and football. Unless you are 60-70 years old then you have no business talking about Jim Brown. Who did he play? How many teams were there? What was the talent level across the league? I have no clue, but if I had to guess he was probably the only real athlete in the whole league at the time. My hatred of old timers isn't limited though, I feel the same way about Wilt, Oscar Robertson and Babe Ruth. Basically all the so-called sacred cows don't mean anything to me. I don't adhere to the unquestioned law that one must rank so and so #1 with no critical thought.

I bet Steven Jackson would have put up 20,000 career yards in the 1960s NFL.

So in other words, if you, personally can't prove it, it isn't right? Your assuming there's been no critical thought in evaluating the greatest sports figures? There have been game analysts critiquing the games and it's players from the start. The next generation on down to you have watched and read what's been said and put in an evaluation and still these guys remain at the top for a reason. I'm all for critical thought but your point is nil unless your going to prove why generations of sports analysts are mistaken.

I'm just saying those Kurt Warner really need to be on this list the 20th best QB ....

I know Joe Nameth is on this list too which he shouldn't

Here is the The Sporting News Top 100 from a decade ago. Baugh, Luckman, Layne were the old school pre 1960s QBs. I'm not sure Kelly, Aikman and Moon are going to make the Top 100. Young was 32 places above Aikman on this list. Kelly and Moon were not listed but Dan Fouts was. Obviously Brett Favre will be much higher and Brady/Peyton are certainties.

Comment

I'm trying to grasp what your point may be, but I truly cannot. Are you saying that historical respect is ******** Bingo! and that the list of the greatest 100 players in NFL history should be a grab bag of All-Pro players from the last decade or two and just leave it at that? Not at all.

Or are you maybe failing to grasp that the idea of "greatness" has basically nothing to do some strange idea of comparing skills if all the players were in their prime today and everything to do with paying homage and celebrating the truly large figures in the history of a game? Are you getting bent out of shape over a list that both educates those of us who never got to see these guys (with input from those who either have watched the tapes or were alive to see them live) and immerses us in a rich tradition? I would say that someone who was alive to see Jim Brown play, a 60-70 year old man, probably isn't the best source of analysis. Just like you wouldn't want that same man discussing who was the superior band: Metallica or Led Zeppelin.

The game of football was archaic in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. So was the athletic standard and the basic understanding of athletic training. Certain guys were able to dominate in that environment, just as certain guys are able to now. That doesn't make the professional football 50-70 years ago any less professional football, it just makes it not our contemporary professional football? Why does such a simple and understandable observation raise such ire from you?

My main point is simple: these "all-time" lists are stupid.

If you want to talk about who was by far the best player from the 1950s, sure go ahead. You think Jim Brown was the most dominant player in the 1960s? Great, let's have that chat. Comparing players across decades is arbitrary, contrived, completely subjective and based on nothing more than conjecture.

It's like the Dead-Ball and pre-African American Baseball years; the no-defense, 120 possessions per game 1960s NBA. At a certain point the difference is so staggering that you cannot make a fair evaluation in comparison to today's game. Technically it may have been "professional football," but it wasn't the NFL (still the AFL/NFL...) and it definitely wasn't this NFL.

Comment

If you want to talk about who was by far the best player from the 1950s, sure go ahead. You think Jim Brown was the most dominant player in the 1960s? Great, let's have that chat. Comparing players across decades is arbitrary, contrived, completely subjective and based on nothing more than conjecture.

It's like the Dead-Ball and pre-African American Baseball years; the no-defense, 120 possessions per game 1960s NBA. At a certain point the difference is so staggering that you cannot make a fair evaluation in comparison to today's game. Technically it may have been "professional football," but it wasn't the NFL (still the AFL/NFL...) and it definitely wasn't this NFL.

Except you've already admitted you have no clue about football from the 50's and 60's, so you have no way to say what NFL it was or wasn't.

You can't gut any ounce of credibility you might be able to bring to a discussion and then try to make a credible argument and expect anyone to give it the time of day.

You don't like all time lists. Great. I can understand that. But you already made one incredibly idiotic argument based on absolutely nothing. At this point, it would appear prudent to exit the conversation at least as far as it concerns any players from the era you acknowledge you have no clue about. Just because you don't does not mean others don't. There are plenty of experts involved in this list that saw these guys play. You should probably watch... you might learn something.

EVERYTHING about these lists is arbitrary and subjective.

Comment

If you want to talk about who was by far the best player from the 1950s, sure go ahead. You think Jim Brown was the most dominant player in the 1960s? Great, let's have that chat. Comparing players across decades is arbitrary, contrived, completely subjective and based on nothing more than conjecture.

It's like the Dead-Ball and pre-African American Baseball years; the no-defense, 120 possessions per game 1960s NBA. At a certain point the difference is so staggering that you cannot make a fair evaluation in comparison to today's game. Technically it may have been "professional football," but it wasn't the NFL (still the AFL/NFL...) and it definitely wasn't this NFL.

I'm still not sure I get it. Are you suggesting that the NFL Network is capable of releasing a list of the 100 best players of all time that wouldn't be significantly arbitrary, contrived, and completely subjective? It's a stupid little list and it's very existence is made possible by people's ability to be arbitrary and subjective in the first place. Recognizing that, if it's very existence is stupid to you, then why object? It obviously can't accomplish what you assume it's trying to, so why even invest anger in it? Personally, I enjoy watching old football footage and hearing about old and great football players. It's entertainment, not some sort of sacramental declaration. So is the HOF (at its core) by the way, and this list doesn't even begin to approach the kind of responsibility that Hall places on itself.

I'm also not clear why someone dominating their competition back whenever is less impressive than someone dominating their competition now. You can point to broad spectrum shifts that cause definitive breaks in a sport (or league), but there's a pretty objective way to figure out whether and how by much a player dominated the players he played against. Do we give them less credit simply by our historical distance? Is doing so even remotely fair or logical? Jim Brown's dominance of 1960's NFL football is just as impressive as Barry Sanders dominance of 1990's NFL football. Sanders may be more relevant to the game I watch today, I may be better able to imagine him having success than I can Brown, I may even (subjectively) like his game more because it makes sense to evaluate in regards to the kind of football I have always watched, but none of that makes Jim Brown worse.

To lambaste subjectivity and then rest your whole argument on your temporal location, something that pretty much defines what it is to be subjective, honestly feels really silly and pointless to me. Granted, so does arguing that point, but so be it.

Comment

I don't have a problem with including these players on the list. However, I do have a problem with a couple of different elements that go into those rankings:

1) Margin. In the old days of the NFL (and AFL) the margins of the game were much bigger. As the parameters of any given game are formed, and the evolution of the sport commences, with the popularity of said sport dictating the sheer numbers of people who play it and, thus, dictating the talent pool available to the sport and, by extension, the level of play offering at its apex, the margin of play--that is, the difference between the best players and the worst players, the best teams and the worst teams, etc--is very large. For a major American sport, these margins slim down and become minute once the evolutionary process has run itself near to its asymptotical termination. All meaning this: the difference between Jim Brown and Joe Schmoe RB--or Joe Schmoe tackler, for that matter--was much larger because of the times. Because of the limited number of people playing football as compared to today, and because of the lack of medical and technical advancements that allow for players to develop their bodies to peak condition. As a result, Jim Brown dominates on a level that isn't possible in today's NFL, and as such he is over-valued on an All Time basis. Not because of his own skill, not because of the work he did to be great, but because of the wade variance in talent level across the league.

2) Time bias. As time goes on, players that you saw become greater and greater in response to all the modern advancements of today's players. Suddenly a guy that was 6'0" 220lbs becomes 6'2" 240lbs in the retelling of the story. A guy with 4.5 speed now has 4.3 speed, etc etc. People have a tendency to make legends out of historical figures, and this leads to misinformation and the skewing of their abilities and places in the game.

If those two factors could be legitimately mitigated, I would be fine with including old players. Its impossible to do, obviously. I cannot buy that Jim Brown was the best player in NFL history. I cannot buy that he was the greatest. But he certainly dominated his competition more than any other player ever has....so, how do you reconcile all this together and make a coherent list? The John Clayton way: just start writing **** down and submit it to your editors when you're done.

Originally posted by 21ST

He was protecting his self

Originally posted by tjsunstein

From what? His leg?

Originally posted by Paranoidmoonduck

That leg has had it out for him since day 1.

"We're the quiet guys, the guys before the storm. And then we hit you."

Anyone I've missed? I have a feeling this Top 100 will be harsh on WRs just like Canton. If Cris Carter, Marvin Harrison or Tim Brown were going to make the cut I think they would have been named already. Same for Troy Aikman who I'm praying isn't voted higher than Steve Young.